Paper Things (12 page)

“It probably means that you can’t make over a certain income. You should call,” Chloe says, grabbing his phone from the coffee table.

Gage places two platters on the bar. The pork chops, with brown bits mixed into the applesauce, look amazing. So does the broccoli with cheese. He brings over a large bowlful of steaming baby potatoes and takes his place on a stool.

“Call about the apartment,” says Chloe, holding out the phone.

“I’ll call,” says Gage, scooping up pork chops and sliding them onto our plates.

Chloe sings, “It’s in the East End. It could be gone tomorrow.” She is still holding his phone.

I’ve cut my first piece, and my mouth is watering. I can already taste the juiciness of the pork chop. As much as I want Gage to call about the apartment, I want Chloe to put the phone down and pick up her fork even more.

The Beatles sing “Let It Be.” I wonder if Nate chose the song or if it’s a coincidence.

Gage stares at Chloe.

She stares back.

Nate gives me a grimace that says
awkward.

Gage rests his forearms on the table and sighs. “I can’t call, Chloe,” he says. “Janna cut my phone service today.”

She throws the phone down on the counter. “You’ve got to be kid —”

Gage interrupts. “Please don’t, Chloe,” he says. “Tonight,
please,
let’s not let Janna ruin this celebration.”

Chloe pauses. You can tell that she doesn’t want to change the subject. Maybe she wants to rail about Janna; maybe she wants to offer him her phone. But she stops herself, picks up her fork, and shrugs.

Ever notice that a shrug hardly ever means what it’s meant to?

I wait by my locker for Sasha to finish her duties as patrol leader. Every morning since fifth grade started, we’ve met here. I’ve decided that today will be the day I tell her everything. I’ll tell her about leaving Janna’s, Gage’s new job, and the Jiffy Lube airplane. I’m looking forward to having things back to normal between us.

But she doesn’t come. It isn’t until Mr. O. pops his head outside his door and tells anyone who is still standing in the hall to come on in that I go to get my social studies book and find the note from her inside my locker. It reads:
Thanks for calling me back last night. AGAIN!
Then there is someone else’s handwriting — Linnie’s, I’m pretty sure — right below Sasha’s:
Do you know you’re the only fifth-grader who still doesn’t own a cell phone?

I grab my book and slam my locker closed. So Sasha has called Janna’s after all — and more than once. But obviously Janna hasn’t told her that I don’t live there. What does Janna say instead? That I’m eating dinner? Busy? Gone somewhere? Whatever the excuse, Sasha clearly thinks I’m ignoring her.

As for Linnie’s remark, that isn’t even close to being true. Loads of kids at our school don’t have cell phones. Last I knew, Sasha didn’t have one either — though I wonder if she just got one and that’s why she was calling.

That, or she still wants to talk about my appearance.

I can’t find out which, because she and Linnie, who are already at their seats in homeroom, pretend they don’t see me when I walk in. I’m about to say something, to tell Sasha that I have something very important to tell her — something that will explain everything — when Daniel grabs my backpack and yanks.

“Cut it —”

“I’ll do it,” he says.

“You’ll do what?”

“Help you get a leadership role. And apply to Carter.”

I had forgotten all about my note to Daniel. I want to ask Daniel how he plans to help, but just then, the morning announcements begin. While we stand for the national anthem, I look over at Sasha. We always exchange a glance during the anthem, our here-we-go-again look. But today she doesn’t turn back, doesn’t catch my eye. She looks at Linnie instead.

It’s OK, Arianna Hazard,
I tell myself.
You like being invisible. You’re good at it.
I decide not to tell Sasha about my situation, after all — not until she acknowledges that I exist.

All morning long, I glide in and out of classes, pretending that I’m a ghost. It’s actually amazing how easy this is. Most of my teachers have long given up calling on me, which normally would upset me but which I don’t mind today. It just makes being invisible all the easier.

At lunchtime, I ask Mr. O. if I can do work in his room again. He asks to see the work I did yesterday during lunch. Fortunately, I’ve completed the introduction and three new pages. I’ve written about Louisa May’s childhood — how she’d had to move frequently and how she’d written in her journal, “I wish I was rich, I was good, and we were all a happy family this day.”

“Very good, Arianna,” Mr. O. says, handing my pages back to me. “Let’s see if you can’t match yesterday’s productivity. I’ll be in the teachers’ lounge if you need me.”

Inside my backpack I have a salami-and-cheese sandwich that Nate made me. Now that Gage has a job, I told him after breakfast that Janna had not only stopped paying for his phone but also my hot lunch — though I wish I hadn’t, since Gage’s whole body tensed as he sprayed angry words: “Why didn’t you tell me, Ari! I can’t believe she cut you off! I just assumed that you were set for the rest of the year!”

Chloe went over and put her arm around him, but he was too mad to be comforted by her touch.

“She just wants to put the screws to us,” he continued. “Like always, Janna has to prove that she’s the one who knows everything. I can’t believe she would do that to you, Ari!”

“Ari probably qualifies for free lunch,” Nate said.

“Not until we can put an address on the form,” Gage replied.

I probably could have started the circle game with that line, but I knew Gage wasn’t in the mood to play.

He sat down on the couch beside me and held open my backpack while I tried to fit in some clean clothes and my schoolwork, too. “I promise I’m going to fix this,” he said.

I struggled to slip my Paper Things folder into my backpack.

“Do you believe me, Ari?”

I looked at Gage and nodded.

“We can do this. I know we can. We’re a team, right?”

“A team,” I said.

I’m writing the next section of my report when Daniel walks into the room.

“Did you get permission to be here?” I ask. I’m afraid that he’s going to get us both in trouble.

“Which items on my list do you want to do?” he asks, ignoring me and flipping a chair around so he’s straddling it backward.

“There’s one more round of leadership announcements before the end of the year,” I say. “Can you guarantee that one of those jobs will be mine?”

He shakes his head. “Face it, Ari. The odds of getting one of those final positions are slim.”

I look away for a moment, wondering if everyone in the school has noticed how badly I’m doing.

“But,” he continues, “I can give you a
suggestion.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“Invent your own leadership role,” Daniel says.

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“Come up with something helpful to do and then ask a teacher if you can do it. I bet you’d even get extra credit for having come up with the role yourself!”

Extra credit sounds good. I can use all the credit I can get. “I volunteer at Head Start,” I say. “Do you think that would count?”

Daniel makes a face to show that he’s thinking, but I can tell he’s not especially impressed. “Lots of kids volunteer,” he says. “I think you need something else, something that really sets you apart. Though having volunteer work on your application can’t hurt,” he adds, likely noticing my sadness.

“OK,” I say slowly. “So, what sorts of helpful tasks could I volunteer to do?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel admits. “But there must be something that needs doing here at Eastland — something besides safety patrol and tutoring math.”

I shrug. “Yeah, maybe,” I say, when what I really want to say is
Thanks for nothing.

“So, which of the items on my list do you want to do?” he asks again, opening his little book.

“None,” I say. “You didn’t get me a leadership role.”

“True,” he says. “But all you’ve got to do now is come up with an idea, and you’ll have a leadership role to put on your application. So, which one should I put off till you’re ready?”

I can’t help myself. I look at his list. I’m definitely not going to sneak into Ms. Finch’s room again, no matter what I think of poor Gerald. And I’m not sliding down the math hallway either.

I consider making snowflakes. I’d missed making them back in November when we had the first snowfall, even more than I expected. I’d been in Mr. O.’s room, studying the American Revolution, when Linnie announced that the first flakes were falling. We’d all cheered and started putting our textbooks away in anticipation of paper and scissors. But Mr. O. had sighed and said, “Not this year.” We just kept on reading about Paul Revere as if nothing exciting were happening right outside our very own window, as if the traditions of the Eastland Tigers — traditions that my mom and dad and Janna and Gage had all participated in — had never even existed.

That’s when a tiny little idea rests on me, like a fluffy six-pointed snowflake that has to be examined quickly before it melts away.

“A traditions club,” I whisper.

Daniel leans in. “What?”

“I could start a club for the kids who still want to do the Eastland traditions.”

“Like snowflakes and crazy hats?”

I nod. “And maybe even the fifth-grade campout!”

Daniel looks unconvinced. “That would be cool. But you’d have to follow the procedures for establishing a club: presenting the administration with the club’s mission statement; conducting a student survey to see how many kids want to join; finding a chaperone; requesting a room; sending home permission slips. It’s a lot of work,” he cautions.

I’d forgotten that Daniel had tried to establish a robotics club last year. And if Daniel couldn’t get kids to stay after school for robots, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get them to give up their free time for snowflakes. Besides, half the fun of the Eastland traditions was breaking up the boring school-day routine.

“This is useless,” I say, dropping my head to my desk. “It’s too late to get a leadership role; there’s not enough interest in starting a club. . . . Let’s face it: I’m not going to have anything impressive to put on my application to Carter. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to apply.”

Daniel is quiet for a minute. “Maybe you could start a campaign to get the Eastland traditions back — get them back for everyone,” he says.

I look up. “A campaign?”

“Yeah, you know, like those kids who campaigned to get the street out front renamed in honor of Ms. Taber.” Ms. Taber used to be our school librarian. “You could put up posters, get kids to sign a petition. . . . I’ll help. Give me your number.”

“I don’t know. . . . A club suggests that you’re adding something to a school. A campaign sounds like you’re challenging the rules. I don’t want Carter to think I’m a troublemaker.”

“Better than Carter not thinking of you at all,” Daniel says.

He has a point. I scribble Gage’s cell phone number on a slip of paper and pass it to Daniel.

It’s not till after the bell rings that I remember that Gage’s phone number no longer works.

Since I spent most of my lunch period talking with Daniel, I didn’t get much farther on my biography. What will my final term progress report — the one I have to attach to the application to Carter — look like? I’m going to have to work
très, très
hard to bring my grades up — which hopefully will be easier once Gage and I move into our new apartment.

But Daniel’s suggestion has been spinning around in my mind since lunch, and I am more determined than ever to do what I need to get into Carter. Maybe it won’t be enough, but at least I won’t have gone down without a fight.

So as soon as the last bell rings, I head to the office and request an application.

I expect Mrs. Benoit, the secretary, to ask me why Janna isn’t the one picking up the application, and I’ve got a lie all ready to go, but she just smiles and hands over the form as though kids ask for applications to Carter all the time.

As I walk out of the office, I hear a voice calling my name.